Cheese Buns and a Shit Show

Despite getting up at 6 AM, we (and when I say ‘we’ I mean Göran and I) were a bit slow this morning to Jacques’ great annoyance. After washing ourselves in the aguas non-frios we got ready for the day ahead. We got some more water and bought fresh buns at the bakery and headed down into the valley to the colonial village of Izcuchaca. Although not much was left, you could still see the colonial influence in the architecture of the town centre. This looked very nice with the wooden balconies, the stone bridge with a church bell leading across the river and the old tiled roofs. All in all this colonial influence made for a rather nice and cozy town centre (which is probably where the positive things which can be said about the colonial presence of Spain in Peru pretty much ends). Being the last larger (where large is very relative) town for a while, we headed to the centre to do some groceries and buy fresh produce.

This took a while, but after we were done we went to the nice town square with tiny park to eat the pineapple that we bought and some of the fresh buns from the bakery which were filled with cheese. Although I don’t like Peruvian cheese, the buns and the pineapple were both very very tasty. Strengthened and energized by our snack we headed on the road again. We continued cycling. Initially on roads with tarmac and later on dusty bumpy roads. We enjoyed the greenery of our surroundings and despised each aggressive dog along our way to the town of Quichuas. According to our maps there was a campsite there, but in reality this turned out to be a construction site. Bummer.

Along our way to town and also in the town itself, we had not seen any spot that would have been suitable to set up the tent, so we decided to stay in a hospedaje. The town itself wasn’t particularly appealing so we were glad that we would be moving on the next day. The sight of the town was nothing compared to the hospedaje we visited though. It was almost as dirty and mouldy as our (free!) room at the alpaca farm but with a much lower ceiling, dirty beds and the audacious price of 60 soles for a night (which is 15 Euros, not much for Europe but not cheap for Peru, especially not for those terrible conditions). Therefore, we decided to stay in a hotel for once, although the hotel was also less comfortable than some of the hostels we had stayed in. In fact, it was more like a hospedaje elsewhere than an actual hotel.

But needs must and the lady of the hotel was very nice and even had a safe place for us to store our bikes overnight. The hotel was a bit like a maze on the inside (in case of a fire people in there would have been doomed for so many reasons but the weird layout of each floor would have been one of them) and it felt a bit as though people had first built a house with construction pillars in it and not until after finishing the exterior of the building decided that they wanted to turn it into several rooms. This led to pillars in the middle of the hallway which you could barely squeeze past with luggage on either side and a weird layout of corridors at odd angles and in weird places. The room was spacious and alright though and so was the bathroom. We were all very dirty and dusty from the road and looking forward to the shower. Because my long hair takes a while to dry I could go first. So there I was in the shower, I had just rinsed myself off with cold water and was massaging soap into my hair, when suddenly the shower started sputtering before the flow of water ceased completely. I couldn’t believe my bad luck. I was covered in soap so I couldn’t just call it a day either. I turned the shower off and back on again but nothing happened. I told the guys what had happened so Göran went downstairs to talk to the lady of the hotel. She said there was a problem with the local water supply in the entire town and because there was so little water there also wasn’t enough water pressure to get it up to the second floor, where we were staying. Great. It was getting really cold so I couldn’t wait for however long it would take for the water to come back, so the men had to come and hold our large water bag while I desperately tried to rinse off the soap from my body and hair with the little trickle that came out. What a shit show. At least the water from the bag was warmer than the shower had been and I was now cleaner than before I had showered…

We prepared dinner and about half an hour after I was done ‘showering’ the water came back so the men took their turn to wash off the dust and dirt of the day. That evening we had mashed potato with vegetables and scrambled egg for dinner. Very delicious!
We did the dishes, brushed our teeth and went off to bed.

distance cycled: 44.5 km
elevation gain: 323 m
Actual altitude: 2939 m
time cycled: 3 h 14 min